[Mageia-discuss] Drafting interaction with entreprises and universities

[Romain d'Alverny]

Hi everyone,

We did not discuss yet about how universities, schools and companies
(for-profit ones especially) may interact/participate in the project.

So here is a first attempt to draft this important part of the
project. I will put bluntly for discussion how I (and a few others)
consider this, up to your consideration and comments. And let's
build/deconstruct that.


On the one side, the Mageia project is a place where many people from
different cultures and skills sets meet and work together. Some are
self-taught, some got diplomas; some are amateurs, some are
professionals; all benefit from others' personalities.

This melting-pot (online and hopefully offline too at some point), if
carefully managed, is an extraordinary great place for professionals
and for non-pro (students, retired, amateurs) to learn from each other
and to demonstrate their ability both in collaborative work and in
their own specific field of expertise (be it academic or not; be it
software development, project management, translation, documentation,
QA, communication, marketing, legal, hardware design, UX, design,
etc.).

On the other side, great technology, tools and practices are made
available and demonstrated through this very project.

So it just makes perfect sense that professionals participating to
Mageia do it not only in their spare time, but as part of their actual
employment; provided, of course, the employer sees and understands the
opportunity, both as an employer and as a potential
user/developer/integrator of these pieces of technology and
experience.


It's not about the Mageia project providing companies or schools with
commercial services or some specific access to tools and products of
the project.

It's about companies or schools contributing actively to a project
they benefit from:
 * contributing through the means they consider most appropriate:
people, resources, money, visibility;
 * benefiting from the technology, the knowledge, the pool of great
people demonstrating their ability to build something in a
collaborative, constructive effort and available to provide, if
needed, a specific service for a specific need.


I want to stress this out again because that is crucial. That will not
affect the project governance in any way: project direction and
decisions rely on contributors duly elected by their peers at each
level: team, council, board. Donating money to the project does not
entitle to any specific right that would disrupt this governance
model.


Here is how it could be put, in other words:

You, as a person, as a group, as a company, as a university, are very
welcome to contribute to the project if you believe in it, not only in
the technology, but in the governance, in the vision and in the people
that make it happen.

The best way to influence significantly the project is to invest your
people into it and have them become great contributors.

As a result, Mageia-produced tools and products are free software
(that is, collectively owned and built technology and knowledge) and
they are (going to be) designed and built to be used. By you, or
anyone that finds value in this technology and in the fact that it can
understand it, tweak it to one's needs, improve it, learn from it.

So if it fits your needs, just use it, take it, teach it, tweak it,
plug it, play it, burn it... wooops ;-) You get the idea. Find a real
problem that screams for a different solution, nail this solution
down, use the best tools at hand and implement it.


This is for the reasoning.

Next could be:
 * what types of companies would join in such a fashion and for what
use? (support, integration, custom development, other?)
 * which universities, for what use?
 * why would Mageia need to even care about this?
 * how (and why) would the Mageia project integrate this by taking
steps facilitating this (and preventing mixes between what is
genuinely produced by Mageia and what is derivated from it)?
 * how can Mageia keep the focus on its own roadmap (to stress out
that the governance is in the hands of the Council and the Board, and
only them; and why investing in the people contributing to the project
is key)


Cheers,

Romain